Kevon Felmine

The glim­mer of hope the fam­i­ly of Ria Sookdeo felt when in­ves­ti­ga­tors ar­rest­ed a po­lice con­sta­ble and his sis­ter for the woman's ab­duc­tion was dashed yes­ter­day af­ter the sus­pects were re­leased.

Sookdeo's fa­ther, Frankie Ra­jku­mar, said they felt some re­lief when po­lice went to Rochard Road, Pe­nal, on Sun­day and ar­rest­ed the sus­pects and im­pound­ed the black Nis­san X-Trail SUV be­lieved to be used in Sookdeo's kid­nap­ping.

Af­ter learn­ing of their re­lease, Ra­jku­mar said it felt like they were back to square one.

On Sun­day, of­fi­cers from the An­ti Kid­nap­ping Squad went to the home of the sus­pend­ed po­lice of­fi­cer around 8 am and found the SUV parked in the back­yard. Both oc­cu­pants of the house were ques­tioned by the po­lice and left with po­lice of­fi­cers.

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, the woman, a se­nior em­ploy­ee of the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA), told in­ves­ti­ga­tors she was at work when the ab­duc­tion oc­curred last Thurs­day.

Her broth­er, a po­lice con­sta­ble, last at­tached to the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion Task Force, was re­leased around 1 am yes­ter­day. He is on sus­pen­sion hav­ing been charged by the Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau for tip­ping off a sus­pect that po­lice were on their way to make an ar­rest. The mat­ter is set for tri­al next year.

South­ern Di­vi­sion po­lice took sev­er­al state­ments from Sookdeo's Raghoo Vil­lage neigh­bours and Pa­pourie Road res­i­dents near the area where she was ab­duct­ed.

CCTV footage from a near­by bar shows a black Nis­san X-Trail SUV in the park­ing lot min­utes be­fore she was ab­duct­ed. While there was no con­fir­ma­tion whether it was the same SUV used, po­lice are still purs­ing that lead.

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, Sookdeo, 34, a hair­styl­ist, dropped off her two chil­dren, aged nine and five, at the Pic­ton Pres­by­ter­ian Pri­ma­ry School around 8.30 am last Thurs­day. As she drove her red Nis­san X-Trail to Pic­ton Es­tate Dri­ve to turn, a black Nis­san X-Trail SUV pulled up be­hind, block­ing her path.

Two men, wear­ing tac­ti­cal gear, forced her out of her SUV and in­to theirs and drove off. Po­lice have since re­leased a sketch of one of the sus­pects who wore a cap with the word po­lice writ­ten on the front.

The SUV bore a false reg­is­tra­tion num­ber, which ac­tu­al­ly be­longed to a Ford Ranger pick­up which was owned by the neigh­bour of the two peo­ple de­tained on Sun­day.

How­ev­er, the neigh­bour told po­lice he crashed last year and the pick­up was nev­er re­stored. It was al­so stolen two years ago and lat­er re­turned to the own­er.

Po­lice said they were al­so on the hunt for a well-known Moru­ga man, who has sev­er­al charges against his name, to as­sist them in Sookdeo's case.

While rel­a­tives sus­pect Sookdeo might be a vic­tim of hu­man traf­fick­ing and was be­ing shipped to a South Amer­i­can coun­try, in­ves­ti­ga­tors said she was an un­like­ly can­di­date.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors said hu­man traf­fick­ers usu­al­ly tar­get chil­dren and young adults with­out chil­dren. They al­so said based on sen­si­tive in­for­ma­tion they have, her ab­duc­tion does not ap­pear to be hu­man traf­fick­ing.

Ra­jku­mar said be­cause they be­lieved po­lice made a break­through, they did not do any search­es of their own on Sun­day and yes­ter­day.

He said they were worn out by sleep­less nights and poor ap­petite over the last four days.

Tip hot­line

�2 Any­one with in­for­ma­tion can con­tact In­sp Don Ga­jad­har, Sgt Natasha Mor­ri­son or Cpl Bar­ry Bac­chus at the San Fer­nan­do CID at 652-2564 or Crime Stop­pers at 800-TIPS.